If any of you have used the book stall in the church, you will have noticed that the books are displayed on a bier.  This bier belongs to the village of Woodnewton.

Mr Leonard of the Manor House purchased the bier for the sum of £25 on behalf of Woodnewton Women’s Institute in 1930.   Paperwork shows that it was bought for the free use of the Parishioners of Woodnewton and Apethorpe, and the only condition was that it should remain Institute property.

From paperwork we know that this Bier was used within the two villages for the next twenty three years, but in April 1953, a letter was written by Mrs E L Brown to the Northants Federation of the W.I., stating that due to lack of members, the Woodnewton Branch of the Women’s Institute would have to be suspended after 25 years. So what was to happen to the Bier????

Later that year a request from the WI was put to the Parish Council asking whether they would take the Bier on, but saying that the use of it had to remain ‘free’.  The Parish Council replied noting that they would have to find somewhere to store it; since its present storage location was in the WI Secretary’s barn with her tractor.  Over the next fifteen months correspondence flew between the secretary of the suspended Woodnewton W.I., the Northants Federation and Woodnewton Parish Council, until in March 1955 at the Annual Meeting of the Parish Council it was agreed that the Womens Institue County Organiser be informed that the new vicar, Revd Albert Irwin, had promised to store the Bier on vicarage grounds and it was still to be used on the basis of the agreement with the WI.

Presumably, the Bier remained at the vicarage, but when a new vicarage was being built in the early 1970’s and the old one was sold, the Bier disappeared.  Following research into Funeral Biers in the Oundle Deanery with the help of Mr Trevor Danks in 2001, it was found………….in a Flower Shop in Stamford!

A decision was made to have the Bier restored, as it was infested with woodworm, and had a broken wooden handle as well as some of the metalwork being in a bad state of repair. It was taken to David Wills’ workshop in Oundle for restoration to its former glory.  After the broken spring had been repaired by the late Bob Gardner and a new ash handle turned by Brian Norris, the wooden parts treated with numerous applications of woodworm killer and finally sanded and coated numerous times with yacht varnish, the Bier was now back, as far as possible, to its original condition.  The total sum for its renovation was £64.80.

It was returned to Woodnewton in 2004 with recommendatons that it should never be used as a bier again.  It took up a new home in the church.

2017